


Let's Form a Party!!

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1993155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Infiltrate the Titan Empire and re-seal the Forgotten Kings, primeval gods who were roused from their ages-long slumber.</p>
<p>Humanity’s Strongest Party is about to embark on their greatest journey yet. One that could very well give the Kingdom of Sina a chance against the vicious, immortal soldiers of the empire.</p>
<p>Eren doesn’t know how he fits into all of this, but he’s been told that he’ll come in handy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Quite Literally a Horse-Face

Being a healer was taxing. A lot of people thought it was just mixing herbs for cures and antidotes, shouting pretty-sounding magic words to make the pain go away, and waiting for the sidelines until frontliners needed their help, but it was a lot more than that.

Being a healer meant possessing a shitload of mana and then being able to flush out that enormous amount in varying degrees depending on what the damaged area was, how many areas needed to be tended to, et cetera. It also meant being woken up at inopportune times, the ungodly hours between two in the morning and six in the morning, because, “Oh Healer! We’re so terribly, terribly sorry but our guild members just got hexed by an angry, homicidal slime near the Whistling Forest!”, or something to this effect.

Eren was of the opinion that idiots that managed to aggravate the slow-moving, herbivorous, uninterested-in-human-culture slimes that lived in the Whistling Forest were better off tending to their mothers’ little flower gardens. Not that he had anything against gardeners; or maybe he did because the girl he was wooing was a gardener and that weaselly bitch had the nerve to lead him, and several other hopeful young men and women, then tell them that she was already engaged to some sailor but thank you so very much for your gifts, ta-ta loves.

Still, Eren was a healer — a greenhorn at that, but promising nevertheless if he could keep his violent moods in check — and was expected to act as such. So he asked, “Where are they?”, as he got his first-aid kit and put on a coat on top of his pajama-clad self. He grabbed the communication sphere that was incessantly hovering around him and nodded dumbly as he was given instructions as to where the party was.

“Thanks. Our healer’s been out, what with her baby and all.” A gruff voice, different from the one who first hailed him. Good to know that he wasn’t the only one having a rough night.

“Just doing my job. Be there in ten minutes.” Eren stifled a yawn.

“Much obliged.”

When he reached his home’s entryway, he pushed the commsphere away from him and let it bob on thin air. He slid on his boots and tugged them up so that they fit him snugly. He opened his door and beckoned the commsphere to come to him. He closed his door and fumbled with his keys in order to lock it; thieves were also a plague to the otherwise safe haven that was the idle and humble district of Shiganshina.

“Tell me more about their status,” said Eren. He stretched a little and began the quick walk to the town square.

“They got their faces replaced with animal faces,” said the same man.

Eren made a face that told volumes about his herculean hold on his amusement. Having run out of professional terms that could make him sound very smart and very much like an experienced healer, he settled for replying with “I see.”

Those were pesky hexes though. Nothing harmful, but it was definitely a task getting rid of them. It would probably take a cup of dingleberry tea infused with vaxfeld essence and then half an hour’s worth of incantations; the incantation was a general, low-level de-hexing spell and the dingleberry tea was to make the spell more potent. Healing battle wounds were easier than this, but Eren’s opinion probably came from the fact that he wasn’t used to healing these kinds of things. Counter-hex professionals could probably fix this in half the time he thought it would take him to get rid of the hex.

But counter-hex mages were as expensive as fuck. Not to mention, Shinganshina, small and sleepy town that it was, didn’t have counter-hex mages. That was because, in the first place, everyone knew that you would have to be really, incredibly stupid to trigger forest slime hexes, and forest slimes were the only animals around here that could place hexes on people.

When he got to the town square, he was met by a seven-strong party who all wore green cloaks. They were huddled beside the small fountain that also doubled as a playground for kids in the morning.

“Yes, hello,” he said as he approached them. “You hailed me for a de-hexing?”

All seven faces stared at him. Four human, one cow, one pig, and one horse. There was one man, whom their own commsphere was hovering about, who put on a mask of boredom.

Perhaps the most memorable out of all of them was the woman (?) wearing glasses. She was flitting from the cow to the pig to the horse and asking them questions. Energy was humming about her. She was probably the first person Eren saw to be this excited at three in the morning.

Probably on some upper, too.

Had he been more awake, Eren would have laughed, Code of Professionalism and Conduct be damned.

“Yes, thank you!” exclaimed the woman. Judging from her voice, she was probably the one who placed a call. She ran up to him and clutched his free hand. “You were the only one who picked up, and we didn’t think it would be someone as famous as Dr Jaeger!” Her eyes went up and down his body. “Though I must say that you look younger than what we expected.”

Eren took back his hand and rubbed the back of his head. “I’m his son. Must’ve went through the wrong network because my commsphere was the one that glowed.” A common enough mistake because he and his father shared almost the same number except for the last digit. “But it’s okay, I’m a registered healer as well.” A week ago, he wasn’t a registered healer but he supposed that none of that mattered to them. “How did this happen?”

“Our newbs have managed to aggravate slimes from the local forest,” said the gruff-sounding man.

Eren nodded. He set his kit on the fountain ledge. “How long has it been since the hex was cast?”

The man took out a pocket watch and looked at the time. “Thirty-seven minutes.”

Eren nodded again. “That’s good. It takes a full hour for a hex to set in. After that, you’ll be needing more than just a cup of tea and a de-hexing incantation.” He sat on the fountain ledge and set to work.

He took out a scroll made of dragonhide and a piece of chalk from one of his coat pockets. He unrolled the scroll and drew on it a magical circle with the chalk. He murmured a spell to summon a teapot filled with hot water. He opened one of the pockets of his kit and took out a dingleberry tea bag which he then placed inside the teapot. From one of the other pockets of the kit, he took out a small glass vial that was filled with some brown-colored liquid; he dropped precisely five drops of this liquid into the teapot as well. On the edge of the scroll, he drew a circle with the number 5 in it; as soon as he finished drawing this, the circle and the number began to glow.

Once he was done preparing the tea, he stood up and drew a large circle with his chalk, or as good a circle he could draw given that he was drawing on cobblestones. “In here,” he said while gesturing to the afflicted party members.

The cow, horse, and pig-head members of the party slowly shuffled inside the circle. Eren took out a dagger from his coat and cut his thumb. He squeezed out his blood and let a few drops of it fall on the line that made up the circle. The circle began to faintly glow.

“Oooooh,” said the excited-looking, glasses-toting woman.

He placed away his dagger and went back to the tea he was heating. The number 5 he had scribbled was blinking.

He took the teapot with him as he went back to the group inside the circle.

“This is dingleberry tea,” he explained. “It’ll help make the spell more potent.”

The three dumbly nodded their heads, their _animal_ heads which looked so absolutely out of place on their human bodies.

Eren let out a chuckle before he knew it. He clapped his mouth with his hand and mumbled an apology; his ears were red with embarrassment. “It should’ve cooled down considerably. Open your mouths so that I can put it in.”

One of the more experienced members of the group, the gruff-sounding man, snorted. The others not inside the circle stifled their laughter. It took Eren a total of half a minute to figure out why they were reacting like that; needless to say, it made his ears all the more red.

He poured the tea inside the mouths of the remarkably unfortunate souls. The cow began was mooing in distress and vigorously brushing his tongue with his hand, the horse neighed — had he been in human form, Eren had no doubt that his face was a mixture of abject horror or unparalleled disgust —, and the pig appeared to look aghast to the point where she had become absolutely mute; dingleberry tasted nice, it was just that the addition of vaxfeld made it taste like, as one of his good professors in the academy said back then, a mixture of tar and a shitton of all the vegetables you spoiled little brats never ate during dinnertime.

Eren almost felt sorry for them. _Almost_ because he had only gotten three hours of sleep and he probably wasn’t going to add any more to that seeing as he usually needed to be in the hospital at six in the morning.

Eren almost felt sorry for himself too. Was there nothing more to his life than spending his time inside his idle little hometown? Would he never experience adventures like these weather-worn people probably had on an almost daily basis if their encounter with forest slimes was of any indication of their ability to have danger come to them?

He cleared his throat. It was too fucking early in the morning to feel gloomy. His mother, bless her kind soul, would be absolutely appalled at his inability to be happy with the simple things in life.

“I need you to be as still as possible,” he said, “so that we can all get to our beds and try to sleep off this thing.” He began his incantation: “ _Eundar satgol selinar_ …” He looked at his patients. Slowly, their faces morphed back into their human ones. Their muzzles began to shrink, their animal ears began to disappear. The color of their skin was turning into something a bit more into human territory.

Vaxfeld tasted like shit, but it did wonders for spell potency.

Several billions of words later — also known as twenty minutes later — the three were back to normal. Cow and Pig were patting and prodding their faces, and laughing in such a manner that they could probably burst their guts soon. Horse was a bit more reserved than his companions but he was pinching his cheeks as if to tell himself, “My god, man, you got yourself slugged by a forest slime!”

Eren smiled a little. A job well done if he could say so himself.

“Hm, good job,” said the gruff-sounding man. He handed Eren a pouch. “Payment for your trouble.”

“Erm, I’m not really sure. We’re not supposed to be getting payments ourselves,” said Eren. “We’re in a guild.”

The man tsked. “Give me their address and I’ll tell them to wire it up to you directly. Saved us a lot of embarrassment from getting to the hospital where a fuckload of people can see that the kingdom’s best just got fucked up by slimes.”

Had Eren not been on the brink of sleep deprivation, he probably would have thought more about the man’s words. Probably would have also recognized the symbol embossed on the party’s capes. Though, as Eren was every bit as sleep deprived as a healer who hadn’t had a wink for two nights because he was busy with menial tasks newbies were given and because he had just spent the greater part of his second day helping with surgery, he simply scribbled the address of the healer’s guild he belonged to, packed his bags, and waved good-bye to the seven-strong party.

He was, however, unable to resist himself. With his back turned on the party and his front facing the way to the house he and his father shared, he said, “Slimes hate being prodded by people! Hope you have that one in mind next time.” He glanced at his patients and let out the laughter he’d been holding in for a while.

“Fuck off!” yelled Horse.

“Yeah, yeah, good luck to you and adventuring, horse-face!”

Eren felt that he had really done a good job when he heard sniggers behind him.

 

* * *

 

 “He was pretty weird, wasn’t he?” asked Hanji as soon as the healer had gotten out of their sight.

Levi grunted. He didn’t particularly care. For now, he was just happy, or as happy as Levi could get, that his brats were back to normal. He’d have to talk to them about their etiquette on monster-slaying though. A nice, long talk after a nice, long bath.

“His wound healed up pretty quickly. I don’t think that’s a natural healer thing.” She rubbed her chin with her hand. “Dr Jaeger’s son, huh...”

“You think too much, four-eyes,” muttered Levi. With a louder voice, he said, “All right, let’s head to the inn and get as much sleep as we can get in our four hours of free time. Braus, Kirstein, Springer. We’re having a chat after breakfast.”

Sasha, Jean, and Connie shared a look. Things did not bode well for the new recruits of humanity’s strongest party.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prologue. Takes place a month or so before the start of the actual story.


	2. Of Things to Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an RPG-class/character cheat sheet. I usually refer to TVTropes.
> 
> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses
> 
> It's funny because I spent a few hours just clicking links.

It was around seven in the morning. The birds were singing, the breeze was nice and cool. The sun was up, but it wasn’t scorchingly hot even for a summer day. A castle, large and tall and foreboding, loomed out of the dark trees of the Forest of Agnia.

The messenger slowly unmounted his horse and knocked on the door using the knocker. He went back to his horse after three knocks. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.

Nobody liked delivering packages to the Recon Guild.

The door opened and the messenger gulped.

There was a reason that, even in Humanity’s Strongest Party, Levi Ackerman was a name that stood out like a sore thumb. He was a triple star dragon knight, the first and only triple star dragon knight who could use magic outside dragon lore and who could actually converse with dragons. He was known for being as strong and as valuable as a battalion of men. He was known for countless of legendary feats: defeating the monsters that terrorized the Caldean Sea, going into the Realm of the Dead to retrieve a fair princess whom he did not end up marrying, becoming the only man to ever successfully get out of the Red Labyrinth even though that took him a while because he had a shit sense of direction, and the list went on.

Which was why, when the messenger was greeted by Levi’s seemingly unblinking eyes and short yet bulky form, he was partly awed, mostly terrified.

“A good morning to you Captain Ackerman, sir,” said the messenger. He stuttered and stumbled over a few of his words but it was still a job well done considering that the last messenger almost pissed in his pants. What the rest of the messenger guild that the kingdom employed did not know was that the last messenger had encountered a Levi who had just gotten back from a six-month-quest, and therefore that was a Levi who was more inclined to be pissed off than the normal Levi.

“It could be a good morning or a bad one depending on what you’re going to give me,” replied Levi. He outstretched his arm and opened the palm of his hand.

Humanity’s Strongest had a small, slim hand. A bit like a delicate maiden’s, but more wired. Packed more of a punch.

The messenger was quick to nod his head in agreement. “Yes, sir, of course.” He opened his bag and took out an envelope that bore the queen’s seal. He placed the envelope on the captain’s hand and gave a sloppy-looking salute. “I will be taking my leave now, sir. Thank you for using Balto’s Delivery Service.” He mounted his horse and went as quickly as his horse’s four strong legs could take him.

“Hm,” said Levi as he looked at the back of the messenger. It became smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the forest that surrounded their headquarters. “He forgot to have me receive it.”

He went back inside their castle and closed the doors behind him. He stared at the letter. From the queen herself. It wasn’t often the ruling family had any use of Humanity’s Strongest Party. Levi frowned and made his way to Erwin’s study. This did not bode well, he thought. Yet it had the hint of an adventure and Levi was all for adventures.

After all, why the fuck would people join parties if they weren’t into those things?

 

* * *

 

It happened sometime around seven in the morning, which was too early for anything remarkable to happen, and though Eren was of the belief that people were entitled to their own opinions, he really thought that the masterminds behind this could have reconsidered.

Eren was a good, law-abiding citizen of the fair Kingdom of Sina. He paid his taxes on time, helped the elderly with chores that would break their poor bones (or hearts), and went out of his way to give his seat to people who looked like they needed it, even that woman who wasn’t really pregnant and smacked him for it. He only got into the occasional bar fight once or twice every two weeks (which was more than what normal people would go for, but he was comparing himself with less savory characters, an act which probably wasn’t doing much to show his good, non-violent side — if there was one).

Above all that, he was a goddamn healer. _He saved lives on a daily basis!_

Though he supposed that all was fair in love and war. Then again, it wasn’t like he had a choice. Things just . . . happened.

The hospital was engulfed by a raging, heartless fire. Had been for four and a half hours now.

For the past four hours, water mages had tried to douse the flames and ice mages had tried to cool off the surroundings, but this was all made in vain. From the very beginning, Eren had suspected that magic was at work and was thus not cowering in a place relatively far away from where the fires were — which was what his co-workers and the remaining patients were doing, and which any other good citizen probably ought to be doing because there was someone out there who definitely specialized in saving people trapped in furnaces — but was, in fact, searching all the rooms of the five-storey hospital for any sign of curse circles, fire-creature summoning wards, or anything at all that seemed both magical and out-of-place.

So far his efforts had only given him singed hair, sooty clothes, and lungs that weren’t going to be thanking him anytime soon.

Not only that, but his luck had also run out as he was also stuck in this room filled with (highly flammable) chemicals because, fancy that, the bit of the hallway outside the room decided to collapse. He supposed that he was getting nearer the center of this whole magical mishap because he had gotten into one unfortunate event into another ever since he’d taken a step on this particular wing. The only good part about his situation was probably that no fires had spread to this wing either.

If he were a particularly bitter man, he would have thought that it was funny how he, who had apparently gone off to seek trouble, was more safe than his compatriots whose escape areas were becoming even more invaded by these damned flames as every minute ticked by. But since Eren wasn’t a holder of petty grudges, as he was, after all, a person who lived for the extremes, he was more worried about he would escape this room and finally, finally, get to the source, and then go back to his co-workers and help them with patching up the poor patients who were probably shaken up by this whole ordeal.

He took a hold of the door frame and looked at the left and right parts of the hallway. They seemed to be intact, and definitely a little bit farther than what his legs could reach. He went to one corner of the room, he took a deep breath, and then he closed his eyes.

If he were to rank this on the list of Stupid Things Eren Jaeger Has Done, this would rank pretty high, but a little bit lower than a couple of the shitstorms he’d been through while studying to become a healer. So all in all, this was probably as logical as Eren could get on a high-strung day.

He let out the breath he had been holding and opened his eyes. He squared his shoulders and began to run as if his entire life depended on it. For a second or so, it felt like he was flying; no floor to hold back his feet. Then he began to drop a little lower than he liked. His hands met the floor his feet were supposed to land on. He adjusted his grip so that he had a better hold on the floor. After the first minute of trying to adjust his grip, his arms began to strain as they supported his weight.

“Fuck,” he said. He looked below him and was met with holes all the way down to the ground floor which was, in Eren’s eyes, something akin to hell on earth.

He let out a huff and struggled to hoist himself up the floor. When he managed to clamber out of his predicament, he fell on his back, stared at the ceiling which he suspected could be closer to crumbling than he would like to admit, and tried  to catch his breath. He wiped the perspiration off his brow with the sleeve of his healer robe.

Then he punched himself and got up with a huff. He made his way to the rest of the rooms of the floor without any incident. He supposed that whoever had been setting up those traps thought they’d finally stopped him. But Eren Jaeger was more resilient than dungeon dwellers.

It was on the third room he’d peeked in that he saw a small golden statue of something which he supposed was a deity of some religion in the middle of an elaborate-looking magic pentagram that was glowing a nice, bright red; certainly not the sort of thing people would normally find in a hospital.

Eren squared his shoulders and marched to where the statue was. He had a few choice words for this piece of shit. Then he stepped on one of the pentagram lines and was quickly flung from where he was to the hallway. His back hit the wall hard enough to make him dizzy. The feeling of being suddenly pushed away from the statue was like having both his gut punched ten times and his head hit with a metal bar.

He coughed and held his head. “What the fuck,” he said to himself. He stared at the statue. It appeared to be mocking him, what with its glimmering, shimmering body and its beady ruby eyes.

He scowled. “Well fuck you, you piece of shit,” he said.

Using the wall as support, he managed to stand up. He leaned on the wall and made his way back to the statue. He stopped himself a few inches away from the pentagram. He glared down at the statue. It met his gaze evenly, coolly. He wracked his head in the hopes of remembering all those electives he’d taken on removing cursed artifacts.

He took out his chalk — made from A-grade larkium imported all the way from Yalkell; it was the first thing he bought with his very first paycheck which he just got a few days ago — and drew a circle. Inside the circle he wrote the word _Haexiguar_ , which meant ‘uncast’ in the ancient Qinpar script, and then muttered a few words.

From the circle he drew, several lines sprung forth and slithered on the ground to cover the pentagram. From these lines, several other branches of lines came out. More and more lines were made until more than half of the room was covered with the lines that came from the circle. They stopped growing and sprouting until they completely surrounded the pentagram.

Eren took out a glass ampoule filled with some translucent orange substance. He snapped off the neck of the vial and poured the orange liquid on the circle he made. The liquid began to bubble and it began to increase in substance. Orange liquid soon flowed into the lines that came from the circle. As soon as all of the lines were covered by the substance, the glow that came from the pentagram began to blink.

The lines that made up the pentagram were beginning to disappear bit by bit. Pretty soon, the pentagram was reduced to naught.

Eren made a few long strides and picked up the statue. It seemed less glamorous now, harmless. It was warm and smooth. There were many fine details etched on it. Had Eren not had any previous misgivings with the damn thing, he would have labelled it a work of art. His thumb brushed one of the statue’s ruby eyes and winced as his thumb was suddenly pricked. He dropped the statue and looked at the spot of blood on his thumb.

As always, Eren healed quickly. He stared at the statue. Damn thing was out to get him. He frowned.

Suddenly, it turned into some gold liquid that pooled around his feet. He blinked. He turned around and tried to make his way out of the golden goop that surrounded him. Then the next thing he knew, his vision went black and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. Fires all over the hospital began to get smaller and smaller until they disappeared.

The gold liquid gathered itself and formed into a golden wasp with red-colored eyes. It buzzed around Eren three times before flying out of the room. Before it could make its grand escape, it was smacked back into the room by an invisible field. A large glass jar came out of nowhere and before the wasp knew what was happening, it was already trapped inside the jar.

“Can’t say that I’m unimpressed,” said a hooded figure as it entered inside the room. “Whoever made you must’ve been a genius.” The person took off their hood and took the jar. “What an amazing display of magical engineering.” She placed the jar against the light and, with some form of adoration in her eyes, looked at the wasp that was bumping into all corners of the jar in the hope of escaping captivity. “I’m taking you back with me.” She giggled.

It was only then that Hanji Zoe, triple star magic engineer, noticed the unconscious figure on the floor. She looked at the person for a good two minutes before prodding Eren’s back with the tip of her boot. When the figure remained unmoving, she went outside the room and yelled, “Petra! Man down over here!”

The Trost General Hospital was the first casualty of the war waged by the Titan Empire against the Kingdom of Sina. Before the fire, the hospital had five hundred and sixty-two patients, forty-seven apprentice healers, and thirty-one full-fledged healers. Eren was one of the eighty-seven survivors who managed to escape the fires that ravaged the building.

 


	3. A General State of Affairs

Mitras was the capital of the fair Kingdom of Sina. In the middle of Mitras stood the beautiful, magnificent Castle Hlesey, home of the most noble House of Reiss, the house that lorded over Sina. In the richly decorated throne room of the castle, there stood the famous golden throne which was currently occupied by the legendary beauty and queen regnant, Historia Reiss.

This was not a good day for the good Queen Historia. In fact, this was not a good day for the entire kingdom, or queendom, for that matter. There was a crease on her brow as she read the report on what happened a few hours ago at one of the southern cities.

Today, the biggest hospitals in Trost was arsoned. The fires had taken many lives and had left the survivors injured. The frightened onlookers described the flames as tall and wild and bright. The mages who had been trying to put them out described the flames as alive; they were sure that this was more of a curse than anything.

The findings of the first party to arrive at the scene, those from the Recon Guild, that had been sent to assess the damage was alarming. The one that had started the fire was a statue of the deity Kalamkhar from the Gandhar Region, an area which the Titan Empire had managed to conquer half a century ago. Once the statue was coaxed back into its original form, the engineer of the group managed to determine it to be something made by the master sculptor Dulmak, a man who also hailed from the Gandhar Region. What the engineer, nor any of the other members of the party, could determine was that who exactly had managed to cast the spell in order to trigger the statue to cast an inferno curse on the hospital.

Not that the latter mattered, of course, thought Historia. Dread settled in her heart. This was war no matter which angle she looked at it.

This incident proved that the letter had been but a formality. She was sure that the Titan Empire already had many of his men inside the kingdom, all of them simply waiting to be issued orders, to carry out tasks that would doubtlessly sow seeds of panic and discord inside the fair Kingdom of Sina.

The queen could not put her finger on why the empire was assailing her people. Sina was as neutral as any country could get. Or perhaps that was where the problem was.

The Titan Empire was a power that had been relentlessly expanding its borders for around half a century now. They weren’t strong enough to take down countries with long histories of military prowess, but they had certainly been capable enough of assimilating more than several smaller countries into their territory. Half a century after their apparent lust for conquering lands, they were four times the size of their mother country.

It was a growth that had already alarmed many countries near the border of Titan territory. Not to mention there were also all these terrifying tales about the way they spared no man on the battlefield.

Historia pursed her lips. She was naive to have expected that her country’s neutrality would offer her people peace. The Titan Empire was the world’s enemy, but the Kingdom of Sina had no allies to back her up if ever things like war would happen.

“Ymir,” she called.

One of the soldiers, a tall woman who had a mean look about her face and whose cheeks were dotted with freckles, who stood beside her door went to her and gave her a salute.

“What would you have me do, milady?”

Historia looked up into the eyes of her most trusted friend and most valiant knight.  Then she said, “I would ask this of no one but you and your men. Make haste and inform all the land lords and guild masters. In a sennight, we shall hold a summit here to decide how we shall react to the brutal act the Titan Empire has instigated in Trost.”

Ymir saluted Historia. She turned her back on her queen and made the motion to walk away from the queen’s study.

“Ymir,” said Historia. When Ymir glanced at her, she, with a gentle smile on her face, continued and said, “Come home soon.” Historia had a beautiful smile. It lit up her face and gave the entire room a warmer glow. Truly, she was a god-send.

A smirk plastered itself on Ymir’s face. “We’ll show those Titan bastards,” said Ymir. She turned her back on Historia and an angry, terrifying expression crossed her face.

Ymir had sworn upon her knighthood that she would strike down all of Historia’s enemies and she had, as of yet, not left her vow unfulfilled. If Ymir had her way, and she was quite sure that she would, that Titan Empire was going to go _down_.

She arrived at her troop’s quarters. She banged her fist on the door and shouted, “Get down here, you lazy pigs. We have a job to do.”

 

* * *

 

The Recon Guild was as rambunctious as ever. A great majority of the guild was comprised of fighter classes; a number of them were on the yard practicing their hand-to-hand and weapon-wielding skills.

Inside the main hall of the guild headquarters, people could be seen lounging about in sofas and armchairs of varying shapes and sizes. There was a large stone fire pit in the middle of the hall; when the days were colder and the nights were longer, the pit would be home to a great fire that gave off a kind of warmth that crept under the skin of people and made them feel toasty right to their very bones.

There were times when Ymir missed her days in the Recon Guild. Days fighting monsters and getting a crapload of bounty for it. Days fooling around with her guildmates and painting the town red. But those were days spent hiding Historia from her family, and so she would rather the present where Historia was doing her queenly duties and smoothing out the kinks made by the previous king.

“We haven’t seen you in a while,” said the guild master by way of greeting.

“Didn’t know the old man croaked and left you in charge,” said Ymir.

A staff hit the back of her head. “I’m still fully functional, you bag of freckles,” said an old, bald man whose brow had been creased with many forehead lines. Probably all worry lines considering that he used to be the guild master and all the kids the damn guild got were all fucking troublemakers.

Ymir turned around and rubbed the back of her head. “Nice to see you’re still alive,” she said with a wry smile.

The man harrumphed and left Ymir and Erwin to  their devices.

Ymir shot a glare at the present guild master. “Could’ve told me Old Man Shadis was there,” she muttered.

The current guild master was a remarkably handsome man who carried his age gracefully. He was one of the kingdom’s most sought after bachelors; it was even said that he ate marriage proposals for breakfast and tea time. Aside from being a darling of society, he was also a warlord, a man who struck fear even into the hearts of those who opposed the way his guild acted. He went by the name Smith. Erwin Smith.

And this very same Erwin Smith, the apple of a great many persons’ eyes, chuckled and said, “Certainly, I could have,” and left it at that.

Ymir snorted. Then the features of her face hardened, gave way to a serious expression. “This is a private matter,” she said.

Erwin’s eyes twinkled. Bright eyes filled with curiosity and something a bit more because in all of her years dealing with him, Ymir had never found Erwin to be such a simple man. It was both his greatest and worst trait.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “My study would be best for that.”

He led her through the winding staircases of the castle, through the hallways and corridors adorned with various artifacts that pointed at the guild’s long and colorful history. On the fifth floor, they entered the third door to the right.

Erwin’s study was an elegant-looking thing. Bookshelves, all filled to the brim with books, made up the three walls of the room, and the remaining wall was a glass window that gave a nice view of the forest, or as nice a view anyone could get from the dark, almost haunted-looking Forest of Agnia. Parallel to the window was Erwin’s desk, on top of which were piles of documents and scrolls.

“Busy as always,” said Ymir.

Erwin smiled. “When you’re in charge of people who have a tendency for damaging public property, you get busy comparing their reports with the reports of the police.” He gestured to one of the plush red armchairs in front of his table. “Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable.”

“Cut the crap. I’m just here to give you a message.”

Erwin closed the door behind him. “Let’s hear your message then.” He made his way to his chair and Ymir followed suit.

“Queen Regnant Historia Reiss has summoned all the lords and guild masters to Castle Hlesey. There you will discuss the matter which we have informed you about earlier this morning. As you may have already known, since it was one of your parties that got to Trost first, the empire has already struck.”

“When will this happen?”

“In a sennight.” Ymir sat on a chair and regarded Erwin with her dark, seemingly unblinking eyes.

Erwin returned her stare. “Yes, of course. I’ll represent our guild.” He paused. “It was quite an unpleasant surprise to know how fast they carry out their threats. Why, if I’m correct, they managed to send their declaration of war a few hours before the fire started in Trost.”

Indeed, thought Ymir, it was his best and worst trait. That man probably already had his own set of theories regarding the entire thing. Theories that would end up being horrible and right. But Erwin was not the sort to discuss what went through his mind. Ymir supposed that they would all know what was in that head in due time. Hopefully not too late.

She frowned.

“This is something bigger than the queen, Ymir,” said Erwin.

“There is no matter greater than the queen’s safety,” replied Ymir.

“I see.”

Ymir didn’t see, couldn’t understand, but then most people couldn’t see the things Erwin Smith saw. Nor did she want to know in the first place. Erwin was an odd man, a dangerous man.

“Very well then,” said Erwin. “As I have said previously, I will be attending on behalf of the Recon Guild. Please send the queen my regards.”

“Yes, of course,” said Ymir as she stood up. “I’ll see myself out.” She paused. “This is a secret. The only persons who know about this are me, my men, and all the people who’re going to attend. We’d like to keep it a secret for obvious reasons.”

Erwin nodded. “Understood.”

Ymir walked out of the room and out of the guild headquarters.

Erwin stared at her retreating back, even long before she was gone. “This is a pretty big gamble on Historia’s part,” he said. “You can come out now.”

A section of one of his bookshelves opened to reveal another room that contained Hanji and Levi. The two of them made their way to where Erwin was and sat themselves on the chairs in front of the man.

“They probably already know what they’re getting into,” said Hanji.

“But it’s still pretty fucking stupid to trust every other head of something out there,” countered Levi. “Not like everyone’s her friend.”

“Still, this matter intrigues me,” said Erwin. “Why indeed would Titan attack from out of the blue. Sina is far, they’d have to cross the Sea of Golgar to get to us. They’d be better off waging a war with neighboring port cities first.” His lips thinned. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they don’t think like you.” Levi shrugged. Titan was known for being a bloodthirsty, ambitious shit of a country. “Maybe they thought they had enough balls to clash with Sina.” And Sina was a strong country on its own; there was a reason why it had been able to uphold its status as a neutral country for centuries now.

“I hope so. That would be easier to deal with.” Still, he had a bad feeling about this.

Hanji shifted such that her back was on one of the armrests. She propped her legs on the other armrest. “Or maybe there really is something in Sina.” A grin bloomed on her face. “I want to find out.” She looked at Erwin. “I’m going to go back to Trost. I might just have to interview people. Maybe there’s a local legend or something. There has to be a reason why they were the first to get terrorized.”

“Take Levi’s team with you. If they start getting too antsy about not doing anything, they’ll start wrecking things.”

The look on Levi’s face was priceless.

Erwin smiled.

 


	4. Footwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren would give the garrison dungeons' prisoners' food a 1 out of 5 rating.
> 
> Hanji and Levi's investigation begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re a little bit bad at imagining how heights look like when they’re all in number form (like me lol), you can refer to this one https://warosu.org/data/cgl/img/0068/60/1369805715683.jpg. Or if you’re the AU kind of guy, I guess this one works as well http://www.zerochan.net/1549823#full.

The wind against his face. The rough feel of the reins on his calloused hands. Those moments when his hands would sometimes brush the scales — smooth like pearls, white with streaks of blue and brown depending on how the light shone — of his dragon. The excited, overjoyed screaming and hooting of that shitty four-eyed she-man or he-woman or whatever the fuck it was she wanted to be that day being drowned by the howling of the wind.

There was nothing Levi liked more than dragon riding.

Even if it made him look tinier than what he already was. Not that, you know, anyone even dared tell him that.

He, however and unfortunately, owed the pleasure of being able to travel with his dragon to Hanji. Hanji who was, despite being a goddamn engineer, allergic to every teleportation magic known to mankind. It was a peculiar allergy that only affected, apparently, one in a million persons. Putting it into perspective, it probably wasn’t unusual for such an unusual thing to be in the medical record of one such Hanji Zoe, seeing as she was unusual herself; to put it shortly, an unusual allergy for an unusual person.

Levi climbed up his dragon’s back until he reached her head. He scratched the top of her head — damn thing was larger than him by at least three times, the head, that was, because Katla was at least as large as their headquarters — and murmured a few words. The dragon began her descent. Hanji’s screams escalated in volume. Levi had half a mind to do several aerial loops, but he was reminded of the amount of paperwork he’d have to do just to explain how Hanji ended up being stranded in a forest.

“Too fucking early for this shit,” muttered Levi.

Katla crooned. She gave her wings one more flap before she settled into a clearing right outside Trost. Levi slid off her body with the grace of someone who’d practiced the motion several times. Hanji fell from the dragon and tumbled to the ground.

“That was so fun!” she exclaimed as she began a fit of giggles.

Levi patted Katla’s leg. She bowed down and nuzzled him with her too large snout before she walked a few meters away from them and flapped her wings; the latter action produced a gust of wind that ruffled the trees and rattled the forest. She flew away and Levi stared at her until she became a speck on the big blue sky. After that, he turned his attention to Hanji and said, “Where’s this kid you want to interrogate? I’ll have Eld and the others find him.”

 

* * *

 

Recently Eren had found something about him that he wasn’t previously privy to. He wasn’t a big fan of the dungeons in the Trost Garrison Headquarters.

They were dark and moist. Moss and mushrooms were growing between crevices in the walls. The food was below what he was taught in healer school as subpar: the bread the garrison gave was probably hard enough to make a chip in the wall, the soup they provided for tasted an awful lot like sewage water (and Eren, having been a particularly adventurous child who held the motto “Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it” very near and dear to his heart, was more acquainted with the taste of sewage water than the average adult), and the other dish looked like it was some sort of poo or vomit or some other grotesque thing that did not seem to be food.

Nor did it taste like food.

Eren trudged through his breakfast with a heavy heart and a light stomach.

Before he found himself in this predicament, he’d been slipping in and out of consciousness. There were slivers of memory that roamed around his head: people crowding around him and shouting; someone hoisting him up and then carrying him to a makeshift bed; a woman who was in the middle of chanting something; warm, warm light embracing him. He supposed that they had already countered whatever spell it was that knocked him out. He certainly wasn’t feeling weird anywhere. At the very least he was sure that he wasn’t going to be dying any time soon.

When he’d fully regained control of his senses, he was already stuck in this awful excuse of a room. Nobody had even come to see him except for the guard that brought him this absolute affront to chefs all over  the world. Nobody even came to explain him _why_ he was stuck in this cell. He hadn’t done anything wrong; in fact, if he was right, he’d actually done something, well, _right_!

He frowned and prodded his — dare he say it — food with his fork. He could have sworn that it twitched though that might have been his overactive imagination which was possibly a by-product of being thrust in an environment he was new to and wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Then, once he was released from this awful place (and the place wasn’t really what mattered but, rather, the food he was being fed because honestly, Eren could make the best of anything except if the food was shite like this), he was going to have to undergo therapy (or abdominal detoxification) and that was going to cost everything he had save up until now (which wasn’t much because he seemed to have gotten his father’s impulse buying tendencies when it came to rare scrolls detailing the medicinal practices and techniques of so and so tribe, and bottles and jars of plants and other substances that people used in only the oddest of injuries; the only difference between him and his father was that the latter was an established name in the field and he was just, well, Eren right now), and that, in return, would assure the guild master that he wouldn’t be able to pay the monthly membership fee which would mean that he would get kicked out of his guild.

The frown on his face morphed into a scowl. His mother, bless her, used to tell him that he was such a little worrywart — a whiner, actually, but, as his father would fondly reminisce, his mother had always been too kind with him — when he was down in the dumps. And, looking at (and possibly also smelling) where he was right now, he was, quite literally, down in the dumps.

Still, problems like these weren’t solved by needlessly mulling over them, so Eren conceded and decided that he ought to just make the best of things until, well, he figured out something that didn’t have much to do about complaining about why he was here. He placed his bread in the soup and hoped that the bread would get even the teensiest bit soggy so that he could actually manage to eat it without breaking his teeth. Though before the bread turned edibly soft, he heard the dungeon doors, large and creaky and probably hundreds of thousands of years old, open. Footsteps followed the closing of the doors. He looked up and was met with the sight of three figures. When his eyes adjusted to the new additions of his surroundings, he identified one of them to be the guard that brought him his food. The other two looked rather familiar, but Eren was absolutely shit at remembering faces, even more putting names to said faces.

“You’re free to go,” said the guard gruffly. The man thrust they key into the keyhole and jiggled it until the rusty iron bars opened.

“I’m Hanji,” said the woman. She gestured to the other visitor and said, “And this is Levi. We’re here to ask you a couple of questions about the hospital you worked in. We can talk at —”

“We can talk,” Levi interjected, “after you get yourself _thoroughly_ cleaned up. You smell like a bag of shit thrown in a waste disposal facility.” His arms were crossed in front of his chest. A deep, angry-looking furrow was on his brow. His lips formed a formidable scowl. Though he was something like a head shorter than the woman, he emanated such an intimidating aura that, thought Eren, made him tower over everyone else. “Do you understand?”

Eren quickly nodded; an action done mostly through a reflex, some sort of instinct that told him he would be in danger should he provide Levi with an answer too slowly or too out of line with what Levi wanted to hear from him. He placed his food tray on his bed and stood up. His legs felt a little wobbly and his head felt like it had been recently acquainted with a dwarf-grade hammer. He dropped to his knees. His hands clutched the grimey ground of his prison cell.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” said Hanji. She went to where he was and crouched beside him. She pushed his hair away from his face. “You look sick.”

“Thanks for stating the obvious,” was what Eren wanted to say, but, apparently, that was too long a sentence for him at the moment. Instead, he opted for a more laconic response: he groaned and proceeded to empty the (too few) contents of his stomach. His arms were too weak and soon his elbows were lying on the puddle of his food goo. He coughed and trembled.

“This isn’t normal,” muttered Hanji. She pulled up Eren until he was sitting up. She let him lean on her. “Was there something Petra missed when she healed you?”

“You met him before?” Levi walked inside the room. He gave Eren’s vomit a particularly nasty glare before looking at Hanji’s soiled pants and boots. “You better clean that shit up.”

“Yeah, yeah, mom. You could look a little bit more worried here.”

Levi tsked. “He doesn’t look like he’s _dying_ , you know.”

She put her fingers on Eren’s left eyelid and pushed his eyelid a little bit further to the top to get a better look at his eyes. “I’m no doctor but he looks out of it. He seemed to be doing fine until we showed up. Could it be a reaction?” She paused and then looked at the guard. “Hey, how’d he get his food?”

“I gave it to him,” said the guard who was feeling a little nervous and a little out of place. “It doesn’t have anything on it, I swear.” He began inching closer and closer to the dungeon exit. He probably would have made a run for it if not for the fact that one of the guys he was up against was _the_ Dragon Knight Levi Ackerman, a man who was known for having a fuse shorter than his height.

Not that, again, anyone told that to Levi.

“Suspicious,” murmured Hanji. She gave Levi a look before taking out a commsphere from one of her cloak’s pockets. She called Petra and told her to come to the garrison dungeons.

Levi knew that look. He let out a small exasperated huff and rounded on the guard. He grabbed the collar of the shirt the guard was wearing and pulled him closer to him. “Listen to me, punk,” snarled Levi, “I need you to tell me a few things. If you don’t give me the answers I want, you won’t be fucking any cheap whores any time soon.” Levi, being the very convincing man that he was, got all the answers he could squeeze out of the guard.

Dishes mostly came from a volunteer kitchen, a soup kitchen of sorts, and everyone was welcome to contribute to the effort that was feeding the poor and the prisoners of Trost. Meals for the dungeon inhabitants were delivered to the garrison by those under the employ of the local messenger guild. Levi glanced at the tray of food. He’d been stuck in these dungeons once, more than once and there was one time that was a little too recent that made all the gaoler terribly accommodating, and that shit wasn’t normal Trost food.

Granted, Trost dungeon food was something that looked like it had been regurgitated by a ganthrax — one of the few birds that were larger than average-sized dragons — but it wasn’t ever _that_ awful-looking. Or smelling or tasting for that matter.

He pushed away the guard, who was quick to see a reprieve and even quicker to scramble away as soon as Levi seemed to have finished having a chat with him, with the promise of “You won’t be able to attend the Vernal Equinox celebrations, or any other succeeding celebration, if I see any funny shit with your story later on,” before looking at Hanji and saying, “Kid’s brain dead. No one would eat that shit.”

“But if you were hungry,” said Hanji. She had Eren leaning on the bed.

Eren, on the other hand, had his eyes shut as he took in deep, ragged breaths. His hands were tightly gripping his knees and he was still shivering, albeit less violently than before. He was sweating buckets.

“His stew is moving.” Levi warily eyed the glob that was meant to be the main dish. “I swear to fucking Anaera that it is.”

“Don’t use your patron god’s name in vain.” She rubbed her chin with her free hand. “Suspicious. Very suspicious.”

Levi, carefully sidestepping the putrid-smelling _thing_ that was the remains of Eren’s breakfast, stood behind Hanji. After taking a look at Eren, he quirked an eyebrow and said, “Isn’t that the brat that did the slime de-hexing? The one where we went to the Whistling Forest for the Lockheed Quest.”

Hanji turned to him and said in a manner that was rather slow for someone who spoke so fast, “Dr Jaeger’s son?” She scrunched her nose. “The one that healed quickly.” Levi could practically see the gears turning in her head.

The dungeon doors creaked open — Levi was of the opinion that they needed some oiling or else the idiots down here were going to die of bleeding eardrums or something — and Petra, along with one of her new apprentices, was on the doorway.

“The guard looked absolutely _terrified_ ,” she said. She looked at her surroundings and found her patient. “Oh dear.” She quickly went beside him and then kneeled. She put a hand around his nape and coaxed him to open his eyes. They were bloodshot to the point that there was no white space left in his sclera. “I’m moving him to our place.” She gestured her apprentice closer to her. “You’re going to levitate him, and do it carefully, Mina, while I try to make him more stable.”

Mina nodded. She opened her arms wide and whispered, “ _Aevar_.” She brought her hands together; the instant her hands touched each other, they and Eren’s body began to faintly glow. She opened her hands palms up and Eren began to float in the air at an altitude a little bit lower than Mina’s chest. “ _Sukvar_ ,” she said. When Eren seemed to be doing nothing except floating, she let out a pleased-sounding sigh.

“Keep him steady.” Petra placed a black spinning top on Eren’s tummy. She tapped the top three times and then said, “ _Gungkan selig_.” The top began to wobble and, soon, it was spinning on its own. A hologram of a table detailing Eren’s vital signs popped up on top of the top. Petra frowned. “I knew he was warm, but either my diagnotop’s broken or he’s getting warmer by the second. Pretty soon his body temperature will be higher than a young fire sprite’s.” Her hands hovered beside the top. “ _Sunigak_.” Mist formed under her hands and spread all over Eren’s body. The number that corresponded to Eren’s temperature began to slow down its increase. “ _Nanlae sunigak_.” The room became several degrees colder. The number stopped at 70. “Better, but we’ll have to make him cool down. Let’s go to the nearest clinic.”

Mina nodded. She walked out of the cell and the body followed her. Petra followed them as soon as Mina had gotten Eren’s entire body out of the cell.

“Let’s talk to the locals while Petra’s patching him up,” said Hanji. She stood up and stretched. She began to make her way out as well.

“We’re doing nothing until you get a fresh pair of pants,” said Levi.

 

* * *

 

Buildings made of stone bricks. Roads paved with cobblestones. Posts, streetlamps, and gates made of strong, sturdy iron. Despite its dull city architecture, Trost was known for being the home of some of the most well-known metalsmiths and sculptors in the entire continent. People from all over the world would flock to Verdendach, the largest of Trost’s marketplaces that was smack in the middle of the city, to buy swords, armors, jewelry, busts, and all sorts of things. However, he wasn’t interested in what Trost had to offer its consumers upfront.

What he was looking for was in the back alleys of Verdendach. Shaded by the tall, gloomy buildings of Trost were dark-colored tents and stalls that offered a rarer selection to those who were in need of things that weren’t quite ordinary. Or legal for that matter.

While Hanji was trying to discover if the investigation teams that had set up camp near the ruins of the Trost General Hospital managed to miss something important, Levi had been given the very important task of “talking to the locals” with the reasoning that he was very good at, well, talking to the locals. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been proper to say that he was good at it, just that he got the job done. His communication skills were absolute crap, but he made up for it in more ways than one.

He stopped at a stall that had golden statuettes displayed on a small wooden table. He looked at the stall sign. Vashir’s Trinkets. The merchant was a middle-aged man with a clean-shaven face and a scar on his left cheek. He greeted Levi with, “Look around and you’ll find something you’ll want, yes?”

Levi replied to this by throwing a picture of the Kalamkhar statue on the table. He asked, “Got this in stock then?” He stared at the merchant.

The merchant’s eyes widened. He grabbed the picture and held it close to his face. He put the picture face down on the table after a few moments. He hissed, “Where did you get this?”

“My boss is interested in these things,” replied Levi as he took the picture back and pocketed it in his coat in one fluid swish of his arm.

“If you hold any love for your master or for your life, forget about that picture. Go collect some other thing.” The merchant frowned. Then he tugged a rope attached to the top of his stall. It triggered a curtain of black cloth to cover his shop. “I’m closed.”

Levi heard the man mumble things from behind the curtain. It sounded a lot like chanting. Maybe a prayer. It sounded like a prayer those from the Semihaldi peoples chanted in order to ward off evil spirits. He found it odd because the Semihaldi, before they settled down in the borders of the Kingdom of Calcott, were from the Gandhar Region and, as far as he was concerned, those from the Gandhar hailed Kalamkhar as a benevolent god. Certainly not someone that they would want to go away. He walked away from the stall. There was something quite odd about all of this, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

Before he could reach the next stall, he found that all the other shops had closed as well. Chanting reverberated through the back alleys. It seemed that he had overstayed his welcome here. He touched the picture in his pocket. He remembered that many large temples were dedicated to Kalamkhar; certainly he wasn’t a god of ill omens. The temples were vast and brightly-colored. Women sang and danced in the halls of Kalamkhar. Though that had been about two hundred years ago. What could have changed in the century the Titan Empire had been in charge of Gandhar?

Levi continued to trudge through the soft and fearful prayers of the merchants until he reached an intersection. To his right and left were rows of cloth-covered shops that were filled with the same old chanting as the alley he’d previously been in. In front was a large lot that housed a small red tent with gold trimmings. The sign beside the tent read: _Utgard og Allerdach_.

It was clear to him where he ought to go. He went straight ahead.

He lifted the flap of the tent and went inside. Inside was larger than the outside, probably ten times as large. Balls of fire, bright and red, were encased by orbs that bobbed near the ceiling. Cages filled with all sorts of creatures, both large and small, were hung from the ceiling with chains. Books formed mountains that covered the cloth walls of the tent. Glass cabinets were filled to the brim with all sorts of antiquities. Potteries of all shapes were scattered all over the floor. In the middle of this chaos was a single table sandwiched between two suits of armor. Seated behind this table was a bald old man with a wrinkly face.

“The Wandering Mage,” said Levi by way of greeting.

“It has been a while since we have last seen each other, have we not?” The man had a smile on his face and a certain twinkle in his eyes. “All those who wander into my domain have questions whose answers continuously elude them. Is your need to find a truth that suits you great enough to warrant an audience with me?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to see you otherwise.” He took a seat on the sofa in front of the man’s table. He took the picture out of his pocket and threw it on the table. “What do you know about that?”

The man picked up the picture and scrutinized it. A few moments later, the picture disappeared. It re-appeared on Levi’s lap.

“That is the older brother. Kalam-assar.” The mage’s brow furrowed a bit. “He’s a central figure to that particular religion, albeit one that’s been lost to all except those from the Gandhar. He isn’t a deity that bodes well.” He, seemingly unsure of how to continue, paused. “While Kalamkhar is known to be a benevolent lord of fire, the very same one that is said to have passed onto the people of the Gandhar the knowledge of fire, his twin hasn’t had a reputation as good as that.”

“Cut to the chase. What _is_ Kalam-assar?” Levi rested his ankle on his knee. “First guy I talked to out there went nuts when I showed a picture.”

“And with good reason. Kalam-assar is the most feared of all the gods of the Siyyaed. They call him the God-Eater, Devourer of Divinity, and other awful-sounding names that are sure to strike the hearts of devout followers in fear.”

“Is that why we don’t know about this Kalam-assar? Because they fear him?”

“Other gods tremble at the mention of Kalam-assar. With irrational fear clouding their minds, they subconsciously bring doom to those who make even the slightest hint towards his name.”

Levi snorted. “Do they now?”

The mage smiled. “Though I suspect that us freely conversing about him has much to say about the misfortune we’ve managed to accumulate.”

“There are no gods left.” Levi’s face darkened.

“How sure can we be of that? Gods are fickle creatures, after all. Beyond the comprehension of even someone like me who has seen many kingdoms rise and fall. What, now, is it that you need to know?”

“I have all that I need. That’s not Kalamkhar.” Levi stood up.

The mage clasped his hands and placed them on his table. “The Empire grows in number. Sina will become ravaged by war. No one is safe, not even you.”

“I’ve heard that dying doesn’t suit me,” said Levi dryly. “Thanks.”

Laughter bubbled from the mage’s mouth. “Yes, yes. We shall meet again soon, Levi Ackerman.”

“I hope that’s a long time in human years. You tend to bring bad luck with you.”

The smile on the mage’s face was soft. Behind it lingered a secret. “Is it me?”

Before Levi could retort, not that he had one in mind, he found himself standing on an empty lot. Behind him was the prayers of the Semihaldi. He turned around and made his way back to his team. It seemed as if there were forces stranger than the Titan Empire at work here. Not a lot of good probably came out of mingling with something that once carried the title God-Eater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not very confident about how languages would work but this is how I would imagine them to be. Every country in Sina would have their own language (or at least some dialect that’s vaguely reminiscent of surrounding countries if they’re that kind of territory that’s been kind of annexed or a country that went independent), then character types would derive their own spells, if any, from these languages. Either way, this probably wouldn’t be too important haha, but having their own kind of language just kind of seems cooler than saying something like “Float!” and “Maintain!” or something. Then maybe, maybe, some words here were made because I wasn’t exactly sure how to translate from thoughts to actual words.
> 
> Then thinking about territories/countries, Sina’s made up of several countries. The three biggest ones would be, haha, you guessed it, Maria, Rose, and the sort of main territory, Sina. Though I’d think, for kingdoms, it would probably be better to call them territories. Country kinda makes them seem all independent which the monarchy probably wouldn’t want hahahaha.
> 
> I’d really like to know what you think about these things! The fun thing about fantasy worlds is the making-up part hahaha.

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely based on fantasy RPGs here and there. And I guess character/relationship tags get updated as it progresses?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. :)


End file.
